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Monday, March 11, 2013

From Inspiration to Finished Painting.

Sharing a little bit of my thought process today, from the inspiration to a finished painting. As I wrote in this post, I've been craving color lately (thanks to dreary gray February) and I have stacks of paint brochures and chips in my studio. But it is this palette of eye shadow 'Life of the Party' by Rain Cosmetics that has me so excited and inspired a few paintings.

The colors are so vibrant and lovely. They remind me of our trips to Las Vegas, driving through the desert (in the Porsche of course with the roof down) at sunset. The sky, brilliant shades of pink and purple turning to dark blue, and the sage green of the desert brush. Beautiful.

I start by mixing different colors to match the ones on the palette. Keeping notes so I can mix them again in the future.

Life of the Party 1 and Life of the Party 2

acrylic on illustration board

8x20 each

Starting off with smaller test pieces, painting on paper scraps and pages in my sketchbook. I did about 20 of them with different combinations of the colors and decided on 2 that I liked. I painted them onto illustration board that I added texture to with gesso. These 2 smaller paintings would look stunning framed separately, each with a large mat and a frame with a metallic finish.

'Desert Evening'

Acrylic on Canvas

30x40

And here is the large painting that I painted just for me. It hangs at the front entrance to our condo (cleverly hiding the electrical panel) Every time I see it, it reminds me of those beautiful nights in the desert.